Q: I live at the end of the earth (the southern tip of Chile), where many global culinary ingredients are hard to find, so I was delighted to see lemongrass show up at the grocery store recently. It came in dried form, which I've never used before. Any recommendations on how to utilize it to maximize the flavor?

You might want to sit down for this. What I'm about to say might make you feel like the rug is getting pulled out from under your feet, like everything you've known to be good and true in the world is a complete lie.

Strawberries – those sweet, bright-red summer fruits you love so much — are not actually berries. You might be surprised, however, by some of the other foods that are technically berries.

One last salsa recipe for the month of July. This was a tester favorite — it went fast at the party we took it to. It's not spicy at all, although you can increase the heat by adding a jalapeño or two. It's mostly sweet, cool, and refreshing, with snappy red peppers alongside the juicy pineapple. Those who love a good salty-sweet combination will like this with extra-salty chips.

Carrots are a kitchen workhorse. They're second only to onions as one of the most common ingredients in our savory, and occasionally sweet, recipes. They go in our weekday lunch salads and our slow-cooked weekend stews. We eat them raw with dip, roast them to tender perfection, or quickly sauté them for dinner. Really, is there anything the mighty carrot can't do?

Nearly every recipe with carrots starts the same way: peel the carrot and cut it into pieces. Today, let's take a look at some of the most common ways that recipes ask us to transform this skinny orange vegetable into bite-sized pieces.

Salads are amazing all year-round, but come summer, it's a whole different ball game. There's a bounty of fresh produce in peak season — it's salad's time to shine.

From classics you might not have tried at home yet, like French-inspired baked goat cheese salad and the perfect toss of strawberries and poppy seed dressing, to hearty dinners of red lentil falafel on greens and the ultimate BBQ chicken Cobb salad, here are 20 salads to make your summer complete.

One of my favorite strategies for moving outside the box of the standard Shabbat dinner menu is to look to the global canon beyond the Eastern European standards I grew up with. The Jewish cuisines of Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East — all warm-weather climates — are particularly ripe with summer cooking inspiration. This chicken dish, for example, is often served on Shabbat by Moroccan Jews, but it was delightfully unfamiliar to me when I first started making it.

Sometimes there are so many reasons why we should DIY instead of buying pre-made goods at the store. From being more cost-efficient to making things healthier, building your own homemade pantry might seem to be more hands-on, but it sure has its perks. Even something as commercialized as marshmallow cream can be made better and tastier at home. This marshmallow fluff recipe proves just that.